Concerts & Events

The season will launch on November 10, 2018, with “A Complicated Friendship: Brahms and Schumann.” The program includes a Brahms violin sonata, Schumann piano quartet and Brahms first piano quartet written in the years following Robert Schumann’s death. The theme highlights the very complicated relationship and friendship Brahms and Schumann had with each other. Special guest artist violinist Sheila Jaffe.

The vocal and instrumental chamber music of Vivaldi, as well as the chamber music of Corelli emanate the passion, temperament and beauty of Italian music of the first decades of the 18th century. It also informs us of the inspiration it provided for other composers, such as Handel and Bach, who integrated these stylistic elements into their own musical vernacular. The concert, “Inspired by Italy: Corelli, Vivaldi and Handel” held on February 16, 2019 features returning special guest, soprano Nathalie Paulin and harpsichordist Christopher Bagan.

A Poe Cabaret Saturday May 4, 2019, 7:30pmEastminster United Church, 310 Danforth Ave.(Next to Chester Station. Click map on right for details.)

“A Poe Cabaret” was initially co-commissioned by Luminato and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival and is a program co-created and curated by Tom Allen and Lori Gemmell. It features an original and dramatic setting of Poe’s The Raven for narrator, harp and string quartet by Canadian composer Alexina Louie, as well as André Caplet’s Conte Fantastique (inspired by Poe’s The Masque of Red Death) for harp and string quartet and Debussy’s string quartet all woven together through story telling, narration and poetry.
Debussy was deeply inspired by Poe (as were many of the symbolists around him) and was commissioned by the Met to write an opera on Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher. He was paid $10,000 (in 1910!) but never finished it. As it dragged on, and as his personal public and financial life crumbled around him, he began to see himself as being David Usher, who’s ancient house collapsed around him, pulled down by the guilt and grief of some horrible, unstated crime in his past.
Caplet’s Conte Fantastique is a musical paraphrase of Poe’s The Mask of the Red Death, and includes many specific references embedded in the music to tell the story.
The final concert of the season on May 4, 2019 will feature special guests harpist Lori Gemmell and narrator Tom Allen.